Read Online Look to the Lady by Margery Allingham - Free Book Online Page B

pump.’
    â€˜Lugg, sit down.’
    The words were rapped out in a way quite foreign to Mr Campion’s usual manner. Considerably surprised, the big man obeyed him.
    â€˜Now, look here,’ said his employer, grimly, ‘you’ve got to forget that, Lugg. Since you know so much you may as well hear the truth. The Gyrths are a family who were going strong about the time that yours were leaping about from twig to twig. And there is, in the east wing of the Tower, I believe, a room which has no visible entrance. The story about the son of the house being initiated into the secret on his twenty-fifth birthday is all quite sound. It’s a semi-religious ceremony of the family. But get this into your head. It’s nothing to do with us. Whatever the Gyrths’ secret is, it’s no one’s affair but their own, and if you so much as refer to it, even to one of the lowest of the servants, you’ll have made an irreparable bloomer, and I won’t have you within ten miles of me again.’
    â€˜Right you are, Guv’nor. Right you are.’ Mr Lugg was apologetic and a little nervous. ‘I’m glad you told me, though,’ he added. ‘It fair put the wind up me. There’s one or two things, though, that ain’t nice ’ere. F’rinstance, when I was comin’ acrost out of the garage, a woman put ’er ’ead out the door o’ that one-eyed shop next door. She didn’t arf give me a turn; she was bald – not just a bit gone on top, yer know, but quite ’airless. I asked about ’er, and they come out with a yarn about witchcraft and ’aunting and cursin’ like a set o’ ’eathens. There’s too much ’anky-panky about this place. I don’t believe in it, but I don’t like it. They got a ’aunted wood ’ere, and a set o’ gippos livin’ in a ’ollow. Let’s go ’ome.’
    Mr Campion regarded his aide owlishly.
    â€˜Well, you have been having fun in your quiet way,’ he said. ‘You’re sure your loquacious friend wasn’t a Cook’s Guide selling you Rural England by any chance? How much beer did it take you to collect that lot?’
    â€˜You’ll see when I put in my bill for expenses,’ said Mr Lugg unabashed. ‘What do we do tonight? ’Ave a mike round or stay ’ere?’
    â€˜We keep well out of sight,’ said Mr Campion. ‘I’ve bought you a book of
Etiquette for Upper Servants.
It wouldn’t hurt you to study it. You stay up here and do your homework.’
    â€˜Sauce!’ grumbled Mr Lugg. ‘I’ll go and unpack yer bag. Oh, well, a quiet beginning usually means a quick finish. I’ll ’ave a monument put up to you at the ’ead of the grave. A life-size image of yerself dressed as an angel – ’orn-rimmed spectacles done in gold.’
    He lumbered off. Mr Campion stood at the window and looked over the shadowy garden, still scented in the dusk. There was nothing more lovely, nothing more redolent of peace and kindliness. Far out across the farther fields a nightingale had begun to sing, mimicking all the bird chatter of the sunshine. From the bar beneath his feet scraps of the strident Suffolk dialect floated up to him, mingled with occasional gusts of husky laughter.
    Yet Mr Campion was not soothed. His pale eyes were troubled behind his spectacles, and once or twice he shivered. He felt himself hampered at every step. Forces were moving which he had no power to stay, forces all the more terrible because they were unknown to him, enemies which he could not recognize.
    The picture of Val and the two girls standing smiling in the bright old-fashioned room sickened him. There was, as Lugg said, something unnatural about the whole business, something more than ordinary danger: and the three young people had been so very young, so very ignorant and charming. His mind wandered to the secret room,